Man With Paraplegia Takes Part in Walt Disney World Dopey Challenge

Adam Gorlitsky attempted his first Dopey Challenge at the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend, taking his shot at completing the 5K, 10K, half marathon, and marathon that takes place over the course four days.

What made him stand out among the thousands of runners racing around the Disney parks was that Gorlitsky—who is paralyzed from the waist down—walked portions of the races in his robotic exoskeleton.

Starting off his Dopey Challenge at 6 a.m. on Thursday with the 5K, Gorlitsky walked about 1.5 miles to the 5K finish line accompanied by his father, Stan Gorlitsky, in about an hour and a half. He followed that up on Friday, doing 2.2 miles during the 10K in two hours and 35 minutes.

Gorlitsky’s weekend in Disney had some snags along the way—Saturday morning’s half marathon ended up being canceled because of the threat of severe weather, and his exoskeleton broke early on during Sunday’s marathon—but overall, he came out of it with a about 5.5 miles, or around 16,000 steps closer to his goal of 1 million steps. For each step he walks, he raises $1 for his nonprofit organization, I Got Legs, designed to help other victims of paralysis walk again using the same technology.

“Every race, I get to hang out with my dad. When we do marathons together, sometimes we have about an hour and a half before the pack reaches us, and that’s our time. It means a lot to me that I have these memories with my dad,” Gorlitsky told Runner’s World by phone on Monday. “I also get to meet a lot of people during races who end up walking with me and sharing their personal stories. I think my adversity helps other people get through the race, deal with their own adversity and their life struggles.”

Adam Gorlitsky with his father, Stan Gorlitsky, and the Disney princess Snow White after the marathon showcasing his broken ankle piece from his exoskeleton.

Adam Gorlitsky

Twelve years ago, Gorlitsky was paralyzed from the waist down after severing his spinal cord in a car accident. He was traveling by himself at 8:30 p.m. when he fell asleep at the wheel for a few seconds, causing him to crash his vehicle. Doctors told Gorlitsky, who was only 19 years old at the time, that he would never walk again. The former high school cross country and track runner—who ran a 4:50 mile at age 15—had to adjust to a new normal and use a wheelchair for mobility.

But he beat that diagnosis and learned to walk again with the help of a robotic exoskeleton made by ReWalk. About six months after first being introduced to the machine, he was able to raise enough money to put a down payment on his own personal robotic exoskeleton that retails at more than $80,000. ReWalk presented Gorlitsky with his very own exoskeleton on December 30, 2015—the 10-year anniversary of his accident.

With robotic legs, a new world of possibilities presented itself to Gorlitsky. He started training for Mount Pleasant, South Carolina’s Cooper River Bridge Run 10K in April of 2016—and it was there that he became the first paralyzed man to complete the race. It took him about seven hours.

He spent some time afterward trying to figure out where he wanted to take his organization and his newfound passion for racing. He completed some small 5Ks, but Gorlitsky started to get discouraged when he couldn’t finish them because of the time constraints. His father helped him see past that.

“My dad finally came to me and he goes, ‘It’s about the steps, Adam—1 million steps.’ That’s when it finally hit me. The 1 million steps tour,” Gorlitsky said. “And from a personal standpoint, I kind of approach my 1 million steps like—you know how they say it takes 10,000 hours of practice to get perfect at something—I figure my 1 million steps is kind of like my 10,000 hours.”

Since then he has completed portions of races like the Portland Marathon and the Marine Corps Marathon. But the biggest event to date was the Walt Disney World Dopey Challenge.

Because of time constraints, the 30-year-old native of Charleston, South Carolina, could not complete the races in their entirety, so instead he starts them a portion of the way through and finishes them with the pack. At its peak, the exoskeleton speed is roughly 1.6 miles per hour, and decreases drastically when the battery power gets close to 50 percent.

Gorlitsky expected the 5K to be a “walk in the park,” but to his surprise it turned out to be a lot tougher than he expected. He chalked a lot of it up to his preparation—because of his excitement and anticipation, he only slept for about an hour the night before and he missed breakfast.

Along with that, the tight course packed with more than 10,000 runners and the constant commotion of music made it hard for him to navigate and focus as he usually would with his exoskeleton.

When it came down to the marathon on Sunday, Gorlitsky started at mile 20, with 6.2 miles of walking ahead of him. However, about a mile and a half in, an ankle piece on his robotic exoskeleton snapped, and he had to finish the last four and a half miles of the race in his chair.

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“It just goes to show you that I am kind of at the mercy of this technology, and its limitations,” Gorlitsky said. “At the end of the day, it is still a robot essentially—a machine.”

But with the addition of the miles he walked this past weekend in Disney, Gorlitsky thinks he will be getting close to around 90,000 steps toward his 1 million steps goal.

“I don’t know what else I would be doing if it wasn’t for I Got Legs and this exoskeleton,” Gorlitsky said. “It’s given me my own life. I really look forward to helping give that back to other people.”

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